‘Long, hard look’

Press, 15 July 1980, Page 28

‘Long, hard look’

The Auckland rug' . coach Mr Bryan Craies, agrees with Mr Boggs’s opinions, and adds: “The N.Z. Rugby Union must take a long, hard look at itself and rethink its policy of selecting its selectors. “It is unfortunate that Eric Watson will be the one who takes most of the blame for what happened in Australia,” said Mr Craies, who was in Sydney on Saturday to watch the Wallabies romp to its 26-10 win over the All Blacks.

“I feel very sorry for Eric, but he is a victim of the N.Z.R.U.’s system of picking splpc tors. “Rugby is evolving faster today than it ever has, but the N.Z.R.U. is not moving with the times.

“New Zealand rugby is definitely at the cross-roads and unless the N.Z.R.U. acts immediately to rectify the situation it will be a long time before we’re back on top,” he said. “There have been a large

number of selection inconsistencies recently — New Zealand is going through its All Blacks to quickly. “While several players were unavailable for the Australian tour, the huge turnover of All Blacks does nothing for team development.” Both Mr Boggs and Mr Craies agree that the food poisoning that affected a number of the All Blacks on Saturday, was a big factor in the dismal third test performance.

A former All Black forward great, Waka Nathan, believes that, apart from three or four players, the majority of the All Blacks in Australia are not up to top international standard.

“Many of them lack the basic fundamentals to play test rugby.” said Nathan. “They made an incredible number of mistakes for international players on Saturday. “Some of them were ]ust

not up to it — they let themselves down and they let their coach down.” Mr Nathan, who until recently had a successful reign as coach of the New Zealand Maoris, also believes that the All Blacks were tactically astray in Saturday’s third test. “Go back to 1977 when the All Blacks were beaten in the first of two tests against France, in France,” Mr Nathan said. “After the test, the coach, Jack Gleeson, and his team sat down and analysed what had gone wrong. They changed their tactics completely for the second test and beat France by using their wits. “There appeared to be no change in tactics in Saturday’s third test in Sydney from those used in the first two tests.” As the Maori Advisory Board’s representative on the N.Z.R.U. Mr Nathan is now in a position to make his voice heard at top level.